When I spotted the CNN headline, More teenagers adopting ‘mutant’ Christianity, followed by “Author:  More teens becoming ‘fake’ Christians,”  I inwardly groaned and wondered if someone else was making the connection with eclectic spirituality.    Instead it was a pitch for Kenda Creasy Dean’s book, Almost Christian, and a story that read like a scare tactic for parents of teens who fear their children will grow up and leave the Christian faith.  There’s a lot of blame placed in the article, with the conclusions drawn from the author’s “in-depth interviews” of teens who were indifferent  about being Christians.  I also read the article as a call to parents to get tougher on their kids.
 
Two points I’d like to make, both based on my personal observations and in-depth conversations with people of all ages over the past decade. 
 
1.    You should be passionate about your beliefs. If not, then don’t call yourself by that religious affiliation.  If you’re not passionate about your beliefs, it’s tantamount to fraud.
Maybe these teens are indifferent about their faith because Christian has become the expected way to classify oneself when an American is asked about religion.  It pops up everywhere—not just in conversation but in write-ups for awards at work and on dating sites.  The same people often will talk about not ever going to church or the social aspects of church and not seem to make the connection with spirituality…which we assume one would find at church.   Idle talk at a water cooler about what happened at church last Sunday will more likely include what someone wore and shouldn’t have, who was there with whose ex, or some particularly detestable drama that should have its own reality TV show, “The Real Christians of the Local First Baptist Church.”  Sometimes there’s mention of a particularly meaningful sermon, but when the discussion turns to spirituality—when and if it does—the talk is very personal, about the close-to-the-bone situation, about God, about hurt and healing and forgiveness and compassion and figuring it all out.  And none of that is specific to Christianity, but the tone is much higher and lighter in purity of spirit.  Many of the people I meet who claim to be Christians aren’t practicing Christians.  It’s more like they had to choose a religion and Christianity was more familiar than anything else on the list…being it’s the  best known religion in America.
 
Keep in mind that the fastest growing religion in the US is not Wicca or Islam or Satanism or The Cult of Lorna, but none of the above or unaffiliated. For many who would otherwise call themselves Christian, perhaps eh, whatever might be the more accurate classification, even though it would certainly lessen the numbers of “Christian America.” 
 
This news story seems to say that teens leave the Christian faith they’re raised in because they’re not passionate about it.  If that’s true, maybe they should be exploring other faiths, other belief systems, to see if they’re more passionate about a different form of spirituality.  I definitely recommend exploring different belief systems over forcing your teens into going to church every time the doors open, drilling them to make sure they stick to tightly-structured interpretations of Christian belief out of fear that they might become church drop-outs or “unchurched.” 
 
2.    If you want children and others to follow your belief system, then live it yourself and be the best role model for it you can be.
Technically, I am considered by Christians to be “unchurched,” because—even though I’m still an inactive member of the First Baptist Church in Donalsonville, Georgia—I no longer attend Baptist worship services, regularly or irregularly.  Never mind that I’ve been a Wiccan Third Degree High Priestess since 2004, that I strive to live each day in the sacred way, that I’m quite often mistaken for a “good Christian” because of my compassion and kindness toward others.  To many Christians, I am not considered to have a religion unless I have theirs, and they don’t bother to find out how much we actually have in common or that the God I worship now is the same one I worshipped as a devout Christian. More to the point, they cannot understand why I—or anyone—would ever leave the Christian religion.
 
My reason is similar to what I hear from many other Wiccans and Pagans who have left behind a religion, but never left behind God.   Probably half of the Wiccans I know were raised as Christians,  Baptists in particular.  Another good percentage of converts came from Catholicism, already rich in ritual and an understanding of  Trinity.  Most describe it as I have…like “coming home.”   Almost every convert from Christianity has a familiar story—either the hypocrisy or mistreatment drove them away.  Not one incident, but time and again.
 
For me, it was the hypocrites, all the way up to the Chairman of the Board of Deacons to the Pastor and his staff.  So many of the people telling the youth of my hometown church how we needed to live and what we should believe simply didn’t live it themselves.  The ones who made the biggest impression on me actively did not live by Christian principles.  So when I left home for college, I left the Baptist Church.  It wasn’t, as Kenda Creasy Dean alleges, because I wasn’t passionate about my beliefs, but because my Christian beliefs seemed out of place with so many of the people around me.  It was the people in the church itself who caused me to decide to leave it.
 
I later wanted my children exposed to the Southern Baptist brand of Christianity I grew up with so they could make up their own minds.  I also exposed them to other belief systems, so they could find which form of Deity resonated best for them  (in other words, which form of God spoke to them).  I allowed them to attend church with my dad, but that stopped when my older daughter was  nine years old.  She came home after witnessing the ongoing mistreatment of several old men by more aggressive adults in the church and announced to me that she wanted absolutely no part of it.  I told her it was her choice, that I would not force her to go back, but if she ever wanted to, she could.  She didn’t.
 
Do you think that children don’t notice if you don’t practice what you preach to them?   If they notice at the tender age of nine, do you think they’ll still give adults a pass when they hit their teen years? 
 
I’m not saying that Christianity is the only religion with its share of hypocrites.  I can attest to having discovered plenty of hypocrites, drama queens, and petty minds in Wicca and paganism as well, with a few being so inept at following their own guiding ethical principles that my children have shied away from involvement with Wicca at times. 
 
I do still think that the best way of encouraging  (if that’s what you want to do) someone to join your religious beliefs is to live your life by those standards, being the best Christian/Wiccan/etc  you can be.   It’s called living by example, and when your favorite teens see what works for you, they’ll be much more likely to continue with it or return to it because they’ve seen first hand what it means to know God through that religion.

I’m taking my cue from friend Maggie Shayne and doing a “seasonal review.”  As this long, hot summer of 2010 fades away—the first hints of Autumn cool are on the horizon—I don’t want to remember the passing season as the one that was blemished by the BP Oil Spill here on the Gulf or by a serious but temporary illness that resulted from a bad reaction to allergy meds.  To make the best of the season, I’m looking back at its most satisfying moments.
 
Summer 2010 was the season of working on my core after a turbulent, off-kilter spring.  My core, my foundation.  And not just physically.
 
My most satisfying times were hours I spent with

Aislinn, talking about her life-altering decisions for the future, listening to Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games audiobooks and various Abraham-Hicks downloads together,  discussing her photography business and how to market it.   She’s grown up so much over the past year and we’ve become closer, but this summer has been really good with cementing a firm foundation between us.  I am especially happy, relieved, and—when I think back on it—pissed because it was only 5 months ago that someone tried to destroy our mother-daughter relationship and used her for the sake of pure drama.  I have the kind of relationship now with my younger daughter that I have always wanted, and when I think of what I might have lost because of someone else’s manipulations,  I feel both anger and hate.  And that’s honest.
 
I’ve also loved brainstorming my next novel with my older daughter and the long walks with her on the few times I’ve seen her all summer.  I loved the passion of writing and its feeling of channeling something direct from the Gods, too.
 
My home—a very physical foundation—has been a source of delight as I’ve listened to audiobooks on The History of the English Language  and such while painting and decorating, even cleaning the garage.  Every day that I turn into my driveway and see the huge tufts of gaura on one side and rudbekia on the other,  I feel uplifted. 
 
And then there’s my personal foundation—my physical health.  I’m enjoying the euphoria of finishing a hardcore workout, sleeping soundly through the night, becoming stronger and more flexible every day.  I never thought I’d love Cardio-X so much or look forward to an hour of bicep curls or kick-boxing but I’m feeling GREAT.  And I love that about this summer—that every day I felt better than the day before. 
 
So this season passes, and I honor it and the completion of new building blocks in my life.  Autumn will be even better.

For 9 years and 11 months, I looked forward to this high school reunion.  On the last night to turn in my paperwork, I decided not to go.

It was a surprise, mostly to me. 

There are lots of tales of people who go back to high school reunions to put ghosts to rest.  I’m not one of those.  I put those ghosts to rest at my first high school reunion.  They haven’t bothered me since.

People go back to reunions because they feel they have something to prove.   I’m not one of those either.  I don’t have to prove my successes or show that I’m worthy or make anyone notice me.

A lot of people go back to reunions to find out what happened to people from “back then” and see how life and time have treated them, often compare notes because they need some kind of baseline.   I’m not one of those.  Anyone I’ve wanted to find out about, I’ve done so online–and renewed some very nice friendships.

Some people actually go back to high school reunions because they had such a great time in high school and can’t wait to catch up with old friends and relive their fantastic teen years.  Sadly, I’m not one of those either.

Some people are assuming that something dreadful is wrong because I didn’t attend.  No, nothing’s wrong.  Everything is plenty all right!  I’m happy, serene, prosperous.  If I take a quick self-assessment, I am very close to where I’ve always wanted to be.  Health is very good and ever improving with some hardcore P90x.  A beautiful home with frequent social gatherings and a garden I love.  Frequent travel to regional fun places with a big exotic trip planned.  Feeling productive in my career and passionate about my writing.  Enjoying the company of sexy, loving, adoring men half my age.   Mixing both new and old friendships.  Two amazing daughters who are successful in their own efforts as well as compassionate, intelligent, creative.  Constantly expanding my mind with new courses, workshops,  and audiobooks.  Income appearing from unexpected streams while  maintaining minimum to no debt.  Just…having fun.  No, there is nothing wrong at all.  I can’t think of any area of my life that is dismal or unfulfilling in some way.  Life is good.

So why not show up at a reunion to show that off or celebrate it as I’ve been urged to do?

A couple of days before the decision deadline, I was in the kitchen, preparing a meal for the night’s dinner party, enjoying incense and candles, and listening to an mp4 download of an Abraham-Hicks workshop.  I don’t even remember which one, but it was one of the ones from the late Spring/early Summer of 2010.  If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that I find the Teachings of Abraham to be very inspirational in my spiritual work, and they’ve helped me ease into a life of serenity.  All I remember is that the subject morphed into a discussion of family reunions and other types of reunions.  I perked up at the sound of this because I had a reunion with writer friends coming up in the next couple of weeks and I just couldn’t wait to see these friends again, even though we keep track of each other online daily.  I also had a high schol reunion coming up less than a month later, but my excitement factor wasn’t anywhere near as high for some reason.

Abraham talked about how family reunions throw us out of our “vortex”– our happy place where we have no trouble bringing wonderful things to us–because no matter how great things are going now, a reunion takes us back to where we once were, to other people’s old expectations of us,  to a place we’re no longer aligned with, and the results can be upsetting.  We go back to how we felt with that group or during that time because that’s where the focus is.

That’s when it hit me that even though I was excited about seeing my writer friends in July, I had no desire to attend my high school reunion in August.  You see, high school wasn’t any fun for me.  It was a time of high misery.  Back then, I didn’t fit in and felt as if I were a visitor from another planet.  My way of thinking was different and unappreciated–including by teachers I admired but shouldn’t have–and I spent most of my teen years in despair, being told to be myself but the “myself” that others wanted me to be.  I was actually a really good kid but misunderstood by just about everyone who knew or knew of me.    You know the BREAKFAST CLUB movie from the 80’s?  I always identified with Ally Sheedy’s character.  It wasn’t until college that I met others (a few) who thought like I did.  Now the Internet connects me with plenty of like-minded people, but back then, I was quite alone.  Maybe that’s why I so appreciate people who are different and “unique” and why I’m so accepting of diversity in my friends.

I also find it amusing that I was so sincere about my Christian religion in high school and an outcast among students who weren’t Christian.  Now they’ve joined the ranks of the churched and become Christians whereas I’ve converted to Wicca….so I’m still an outcast among them.

My high school years were so different from my life now.  I’m still that same person inside, still with the brain wired differently, still the visionary–though 20-somethings don’t seem to have any problem understanding my way of thinking and hence, that’s where I find the most date-able men.  In spite of all the body-switch movies where middle-aged moms swap with their teen daughters, I would not want the same.  I’m so much happier in my life now when it is “half over” than when it was just beginning.  I decided I didn’t want to relive memories of an unhappy time and to align myself now with where I was then.    Reunions are about going back to that place where we last left off…and I have no desire to go back there. 

I may not be 18 anymore, but there’s really no place better in my life to be than I am right now…unless it’s where I’ll be tomorrow.

Real empaths feel too much.  Real narcissists don’t seem to feel anything, or at least not in regard to others’ feelings.  Showing your vulnerable side to a narcissist in an attempt to explain how his or her behavior might be hurtful will just invite more abuse, whether they’re in a relationship with you or you just happen to be the latest fixation of the narcissist who’s trying to make his or her own deep personal pain go away.  Narcissists–at least the ones I’ve had experiences with–have a deep self-loathing.  That might seem incongrous with their arrogant me-me-me-me-me-me-me attitude on display, but they have a tremendous sense of unworthiness that causes them to lash out at others in an attempt to increase their self-esteem.  The ones I’ve known personally have an unfathomably deep sense of shame about something in their lives, usually in early childhood.  I don’t know if it’s true of all narcissists, but the ones in my observation have abandonment issues with at least one parent, all stemming from something that happened when they were pre-schoolers, and have ensured they never get close enough to anyone again to feel abandoned.

Whereas the narcissist doesn’t connect well or much with others, the empath connects too much.  The empath literally feels what someone else feels, whether it’s strong emotion or physical pain. I know because I am one, and I’ve made friends with other empaths over the years because it’s helped me deal with my difficulties.  I have frequently felt a heavy pain in my chest when someone was near– and by now I can tell the difference (most of the time) between someone else’s physical pain and my own–only to find out that the person was having heart trouble.  I’ve felt the inner anxiety of a person, the hidden stresses behind the smile, the anger no one else could see right before someone lashed out or became violent.  I can explain it in several ways but if you don’t believe that one person’s feelings can be perceived by another, then no amount of scientific, psychological, or spiritual explanation will convince you.  All I can tell you is what I’ve experienced myself, and it’s both a blessing and a curse.

Being an empath is at its most incredible when you’re in a loving, bonded relationship and giddy with the newness of discovering each other.  It’s at its worst when you let your own feelings be overshadowed by someone  else’s, particularly when those feelings are loaded with anxiety or grief.  It’s for these reasons that I save myself the agony of hanging out around airports and medical facilities–too much intense negative emotion by others leaves me feeling…rubbed raw.   But even worse for an empath is being in a relationship with a narcissist.

Non-narcissists on a negative or depressed binge are bad enough but the diagnosed narcissist bonded with a feeling, sensitive empath?  Hell for the empath.  The empath, for example, may be looking forward to celebrating their first anniversary.  She wants to go out for a picnic dinner at sunset.  She’s exhausted after being cooped up with a sick baby for the past week but the grandparents are babysitting, the picnic basket is packed,  she’s put on her prettiest dress, and she’s so happy and excited as she waits for her husband to come through the door after work.  He’s been promising her this outing for the past month, and she can’t wait.  Then hubby walks in and plops down in front of the TV to watch the news.  He’s sullen, unhappy.  He tells her he doesn’t want to go out for the picnic.  He’ll just eat the sandwiches while he watches TV.  He tells her he’s tired.  She knows.  She can feel how tired he is because she’s an empath who feels physical feelings of others.  He tells her his work day was long and disappointing.  She knows it was disappointing–she can feel his inner despair–because she’s an empath who can feel emotional feelings of others.  After eating his share of their anniversary meal in front of the TV, he announces that he’ll cheer himself up by going to his best friend’s house for the next couple of hours.  She’s hurt by his behavior, yes.  Perhaps she’s angry–but that will probably come later.  Right now, in his presence, she feels what he does and it all makes perfect sense that he go to his friend’s to feel better.  It makes perfect sense that he doesn’t want to celebrate with her because he’s tired or in a bad mood.  She can see the event so vividly from his point of view that it overpowers her own wishes for herself. 

I’ve noted that many empath-narcissist relationships echo codependent-abuser relationships. (That’s not to say that all empaths are abused or that all codependents are abused, etc,etc.)   I cannot think of a single empath I know personally who isn’t or didn’t used to be codependent–in other words, a people-pleaser/self-sacrificer/martyr.  I’m a  recovering codependent and I must stay very conscious of doing things for myself and taking care of myself or else I’ll give up everything I want to make someone else happy.  I’m more me-focused now that I’ve ever been and happier than I’ve ever been because I’m no longer putting everyone else ahead of me to the point of self-annihilation, but it’s hard for me to do.  It’s not that I want to control people as many codependents do, but I want to control outcomes.  I want everyone to be happy and fulfilled, even if that means I have to give up what I want again and again. 

One of the most gifted (0r most cursed) empaths I know is in a relationship with a female narcissist.  When he is away from her, such as at his job or on a business trip, his true personality comes out.  He’s a gentle, happy person who spends his time making others feel good, too, or talking them through difficult times.  When he goes home to her, he becomes a mirror to what she wants.  I’ve seen him become irrational whenever she’s been in one of her irrational snits, to the point of sounding as if he’s channelling her.  It becomes her words, her emotions pouring out of his mouth.  If she feels insecure or angry or no matter how abusive she is toward him, he immediately understands and sees himself in the way she does.  I’ve asked him how he can flip-flop between being so calm and collected with us and then seem “possessed” by her when she’s around, and he explains it that when she thinks he’s a horrible person and really feels that he is, then he does, too, because he can feel her feelings that he’s a horrible person.  Her feelings may not make sense but when she’s in them–or when he’s in them–they make perfect sense to the two of them.  Like many empaths, he meshes with the personalities of the people he’s with and becomes like them, losing himself in someone else’s emotions.  When he’s with her, he sees her, the world, himself, everything from her point of view…and as an abuser, she makes sure she’s with him as much as possible so he doesn’t get any time away from her to sort through his own feelings.  I’ve seen this stay-within-my-presence-so-I-can-remind-you-how-great-I-am behavior from most narcissists in relationships, though it’s not necessarily a sign of narcissism but more one of insecurity.  If the empath can be controlled by  being in a narcissist’s presence and the narcissist can feed off the empath’s understanding and devotion, then the relationship becomes very sick very quickly.

Both empaths and narcissists have a big problem with boundaries.  The narcissist has never met a boundary he/she  didn’t cross and the empath has no idea what a boundary is. Narcissists tend to be exciting, dynamic, charismatic people and it’s wonderful to be around them–initially.  But the relationships they form are shallow connections and they’ll move on to the next person who’ll make them feel good without much more than a second thought such as one narcissist I know who goes from marriage to marriage to marriage and leaves just before the thrill dulls.  They’ll do things to others that are criminal (the one guy who arranged to have his wife  gangbanged)  if there’s a thrill in it.  They’ll run away (literally or figuratively)  if the connection verges on becoming too emotional or too risky of showing their deepest vulnerability.  They’ll breach polite etiquette (the dinner guest who went through my things and donned my sexiest underwear in front of other guests, family, and me). 

For narcissists, if you set a boundary, they will try to cross it.  I’ve been stalked by narcissists and they need to have attention on them, constantly, and will cross the boundaries from creeping to harassing just to remind you they’re still there.  I’ve told narcissistic men not to pursue me because I wanted absolutely nothing to do with them ever again because of their past mistreatment–and wow, what a challenge it’s become to get and keep my attention then! 

For empaths, setting boundaries is the only way to live with the curse of feeling what others feel and getting lost in others’ points of view.  The only way to stay grounded and true to your own personality, your own needs and wants, your own dreams is to learn to set boundaries and not let others cross them. 

Here are a few things that have helped me as an empath:

1.  I hang out with positive people and people whose attitudes are more similiar to mine when I’m alone.  I stay far away from negative people and drama queens, if I can.

2.  I don’t make instant decisions after a persuasive argument from someone else.  Too easy for me to say yes immediately because I can so understand their point of view and excited feelings toward a subject without being sure that those are my feelings, too.  If I decide based on someone else’s excitement, I tend to regret it.

3.  If I’m inclined to make a quick decision, I stop to ask myself if this is in-line with my wants, needs, dreams, personality.   If I get a hell-yes from inside with no tiny niggling doubt, then it’s usually a good quick decision.  If I’m overwhelmed by the feeling to say yes but something inside is contradictory in any way, then I’m likely being swayed by someone else’s enthusiasm and not my own. This is such a matter of boundaries!

4. If I find myself becoming lost in someone else’s feelings, I spend a day or two away from that person.  If that person has a problem with my being out  of their influence for a day or two, then it’s even more important for me to take a little break and re-assess my own feelings.

5.  If I’m dating someone who has had many, many, superficial relationships and is over 40, I take an emotional step away. 

6. Once I realize someone fits the pattern of Narcissistic Personality Disorder–or outright tells me he’s been diagnosed!–I stay the hell away.

7.  If I start to feel depression or despair when things are going well for me, I stop and ask myself where it’s coming from.  The day I realized I was an empath was after a horrible experience where I took on the feelings of a suicidal woman I was helping–and suddenly realized that my deep despair and even the way I phrased my despair was out of character.  I know that my true self is serene and calm, so when I become emotionally turbulent, I always (now) look at what’s going on in my life.  If I’ve just been through a breakup or a medical scare, then yes, those turbulent feelings are probably my own.  If life is great for me but I’ve just had a chat with a colleague who is distraught over her son and now I’m depressed, then that turbulence is usually something I’ve brought home with me from having a close connection with my colleague.  Once I can distinquish my own feelings from the feelings of others, I can break the connection…if I want.  Sometimes, if the feelings are very strong, I don’t realize at first that they’re not mine.  That may sound strange to the non-empath, but being able to tell the difference and know that boundary is crucial to an empath’s happiness.

8.  I never apologize for my own emotions.  They are my best guide to living the life I want, but I must be aware of the difference between my emotions and someone else’s I’m bonded with.  If I am feeling good, feeling at ease, feeling happy, then my life is on-track.

Note:  My apologies for publishing this post via my iPhone–I couldn’t edit on that tiny keyboard!  I was simply answering a question and never expected this post to be so long.

Photo copyright by Aislinn Bailey.

At the beginning of 2010, I paused one night in ritual to think ahead to the next year and what it would bring me.  In a moment of clarity, I caught a “whiff” of things to come.  Many have come to pass–beautifully–but some, I couldn’t see happening.  Two in particular, I did not understand.

I was very certain that I would be focusing much more on weddings this year.  I saw lots of white lace and all the trappings of formal weddings–really, not my style.  I had stopped dating around and had become more focused on seeing one particular man whenever he was in town.  I was very fond of our time together and yet, I couldn’t see our relationship ever progressing to marriage.  Although we always had a blast together, he really wasn’t up to the intellectual and spiritual standards I would expect in a husband.  I’m not saying that I won’t ever remarry and I’ve met a couple of wonderful men who met my standards, but this one just wasn’t it.    In spite of my emotional attachment and fondness,  the image of white lace wasn’t anything I associated with my relationship with him. 

By May, I was seeing a lot more white lace and bridal gowns.  First, one of my dearest friends asked me to officiate at her wedding this fall and second, my daughter Aislinn shot her first wedding with one of my oldest friends.  Since then, Aislinn has worked with enough mentors and wedding photographers that it’s now become very clear to her that she wants a career in wedding photography. Some of the larger weddings she’s shot over the summer were turned into trips we took together, and I lounged in hot tubs at resorts while she sweated (literally) over happy couples. 

So weddings manifested for me in a big way this year, mainly through Aislinn but also thorough some good friends.  They’re a big part of our lives right now, and I am thoroughly enjoying weddings–something I really have never been that excited about. This is most definitely a blessing.

The other thing I didn’t understand was a vision of lots of young men around me.  Handsome, well-dressed men in their 20’s, well-educated, and full of passion and ambition.  Young professionals.  A pleasant vision, yes, but confusing.  Why would I have all these fine guys around me?  I normally date young men, yes, but ones in uniform.  None of these were.   The other problem–if it could be called a problem–was that at the time, I’d stopped seeing other men in favor of just one  who had my full attention, so I didn’t see myself dating around a lot.

One  day at work, I stopped by to see one of the new interns–we seriously have about 60 or so new interns in my career field–and I’d reviewed one of his projects and written him up on several issues.  I knew it was two minutes until his lunch break but told him I’d set up a time to train him so he wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.   He told me he’d chat with me more after lunch because four or five new interns were coming by to go to lunch with him.  Then he nodded over my shoulder as several young, professional guys–all in their 20’s, well-educated, well-dressed, nice-looking guys–arrived behind me.  I turned to see them and immediately thought, “Holy wolf pack!” 

Seeing them all together reminded me of the werewolf boys in the Twilight vampire movies but also made me realize how many other young professional guys were showing up in every meeting I was attending, regardless of the project I was working on.   Usually the men I work with are stodgy, older engineers so I hadn’t even thought about all the new interns arriving.  Young men galore!  Not in a romantic sense, but every last one is so pleasant and mentally enjoyable as I help train them in their careers.  They are most definitely a blessing.

Don’t you love the way things joyously unfold?

The Lauren Hartford writing team has been especially touched by his work, including Issac’s checklist for determining if a religious group may be a cult.  The Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame was a critical tool used by the High Priestess in Celebrating the Tower Card: Third Degree Challenges, Shielding, Witch Wars, and Cult Detection  and has been instrumental in changing the direction of spiritual paths to safer surroundings.

He will be missed.

It’s said that there’s a reason that people from your past didn’t make it to the future.  Sometimes, in hindsight, you can see that the reason was a very positive one.

I lounged in a hotel room over an hour from home, waiting to hear back from my daughter and glad that, with the heavy thunderstorms and late hour, we’d decided to stay the night rather than drive back home.  I was waiting for her to call after a project related to her high school graduation project–photographing a wedding with Jessica and David Marshall of Beachbum Photography–and to find out when I needed to pick her up.  If  she loved her new mentors and they loved her, she’d be spending an extra hour picking their brains at Starbucks.  I’m not sure why I had to pick her up–she was so elated that she could have floated back to our hotel. 

It was a life-changing weekend for her, in terms of her career as a professional photographer  and college plans.

But as I was waiting for her call, I couldn’t help but marvel at how so many incredible mentors have come into her life in the past few months.  Besides Jessica and David, she is blessed to have Jan of Jan Bus Designs and Amanda Suanne as mentors, plus a lot of advice from her photography pal, Elysia Griffin of Fenyx Design.  These are all doors that have opened to her in a few short months of losing her first mentor–and when they opened, they opened wide, peeling back like a curtain in front of a stage.

It’s a sort of a Biblical Job effect, I decided, suddenly remembering several mentors from my own past.  Empty gaps were filled in joyous ways I could not have imagined.  Very few of my original mentors are still in my life.  I’d be hard-pressed to name even one right now.  Several have died, and they always will hold a cherished place in my heart.   Others, we went our separate ways over petty or significant disagreements or both.  Some, at the time, felt like tragic losses to me.  I couldn’t understand then how it was that a beloved mentor and I would ever reach a point of no return, though in hindsight, it usually involved a matter of boundaries being respected and the difficult transition from a teacher-student relationship to one of equal partners. 

It’s only through time that I have come to understand that there was no other way for me to grow than to close doors to previous mentors and seek out new ones to guide me on my journey.  They could go with me only so far.  For me to continue to travel with them, I either had to follow their path instead of mine or we both had to stand still.  Had I stayed with those mentors or had they stayed with me, even the ones who left me by dying, I would not have learned and grown and moved forward as I have, and that’s the best reason that many people from my past didn’t make it to my present or future.

Mentors and guides are all part of the journey, but when we get to walk forward along parallel paths and wave to each other as our paths weave in and out, then we are all very blessed.

I love being able to set my intentions and watch things unfold.  I’ve gotten quite good at it, and the only thing I love more is setting intentions with my daughters and seeing them come to fruition.  I guess I’m something of a manifestation junkie when it comes to that.
 
This past weekend was one of those that flowed like magick.  Everything we wanted, we got—and then some.  Some of it was instantaneous…some of it took a bit longer.  Some of the things that manifested were small; others meant an exciting new path.
 
Several months ago, I expressed interest in looking more into re-focusing on something I love—writing suspense novels—about the same time hoping to reunite with some good friends I’d met through various writers’ groups and conferences years ago.  I’d been planning a late-July visit to my older daughter, Shannon, in Orlando where she’s a college senior in Psychology when I noticed a lot of my Facebook writer pals talking about seeing each other in Orlando in late July.  The National Romance Writers of America (RWA)—one of the best organizations for teaching and networking with other writers of any genre even remotely related to romance—had moved its major conference in the aftermath of the flooding in Nashville, TN. 
 
I had been a member of RWA for many years, dropping it a few years ago because I was sick of the politics over whether ebooks were “real” books and whether certain publishers were “real” publishers,  battles that I’d been fighting since 1998 when none of my reading audience really cared as long as I gave them a story.  I had decided not to rejoin RWA, at least not until I know they have something to offer me, and not to attend the conference…though it’s been enough years since I’ve published commercial manuscripts that I’m off my game as far as commercial markets.  But I was open to learning if that door to commercial fiction might be worth pursuing again.  Since the new conference venue and time matched with my trip to see Shannon, I ordered up one of the few rooms available for even one night at the conference hotel and decided to turn it into a mini-Disney vacation for my terrific girls and a fun reunion with old friends.
 
On the way to Orlando, Aislinn and I set our intentions.  With so many weddings booked for her to shoot, she’d decided she needed a new 50mm lens for her camera and hoped to get some author-photo gigs at the conference, even though we were arriving a little too late for that.  She wanted to get enough gigs over the weekend to pay for the lens.  We had such faith that we ordered the lens via my iPhone on the way there, with 2-day shipping, so it would be home when we got back.  She also wanted to have lunch at Firehouse Subs in Tallahassee.
 
For me, I had two conference-goers I definitely wanted to spend a little time with, plus three others I wanted to say hello to.  I wanted to get a feel for the market, a fast way to educate myself on the recent changes in commercial fiction, and make some decisions about whether I wanted to invest my time there or elsewhere.  I wanted to get some ideas for future trips of a spiritual and exotic nature.  I wanted some down-time at Disney with the girls.  I wanted a short visit with my former student of Wicca and his current student.  I wanted long walks around the lake and some one-on-one time with Shannon. 
 
Hey, I don’t ask for much!
 
Later Shannon, when we arrived at the hotel, saw all the authors with name-tags scurrying around and remembered all those RWA conferences I dragged her and her sister to when they were little  (I think she still has a personal written message from Nora Roberts somewhere in her memorabilia).  Her goals were simple:  check out the conference bookstore and buy the new hardcover novel by her favorite author, Lauren Willig, and oh, wouldn’t it be cool if Lauren were actually at the conference and autographed the book?
 
But back to our intention-making on the way to Orlando….
 
Aislinn and I had to stop in Tallahassee to take care of a banking issue for a relative.  That Wachovia Bank branch wins the award for Most Difficult Bank to Get to by Car!  We drove circles around it for almost an hour before we ended up on the correct side road to reach its back parking lot.  The bank personnel were super friendly and overheard me tell Aislinn that we’d lost too much time to drive across Tallahassee to the Firehouse Subs she wanted to introduce me to.
 
“Firehouse Subs?” the banker asked.  “There’s one across the street from here.”
 
And it was!  We’d driven past it several times trying to loop back and cross 6 lanes of heavy traffic.  Aislinn got a kick out of how that intention unfolded, and we got some incredibly good sandwiches.  Best evah!
 
Within the first 5 minutes at the conference, we met up with 3 of the 5 people I wanted to see there, including one of our favorite people from the Florida Pagan Gathering festivities.  I didn’t recognize most of the faces in the crowd, and the ones I did were the ones I wanted to see!
 
We had dinner with Maggie Shayne et al at Don Shula’s Steakhouse—and some of the best food of our lives, with three waiters and a towel boy, and lots of laughs and good conversation while men waited on us. (I could get so used to that!)  Later, I took a sunset walk around the resort with Shannon and we talked about the psychological motivations of the characters in the Hand of God novel I want to write, did a little brainstorming, and soaked up the pastel colors of sunset on the lakes.
 
We returned from our walk to find Aislinn super-excited.  She hadn’t set up any author photo gigs since it was so late and we were so tired but…suddenly she had four new clients emailing her from home, clamoring for appointments.  More than enough to cover the cost of her new photography equipment.  (And several more clients sought her out the next day!)
 
We brunched with Sharyn Cerniglia, one of the most upbeat Law of Attraction/Abraham-Hicks folks I know and such a joy to be around.  Barbara O’Neal, who that night won a major award for one of her novels, joined us and the two told us all about their recent trek along the Camino de Santiago, which is high-high-HIGH on my to-do list now.   
 
I walked back through the conference area while Shannon checked the bookstore to see if anyone knew if Lauren Willig was at the conference and there I discovered that I could purchase the entire set of conference workshops on audio CD for less than $1 per workshop, provided I paid at the conference.  No requirement to be an RWA member or conference attendee.  These workshops included advice on craft, market, what specific publishers were looking for, etc.  Hmmm, pretty much exactly what I was looking for so that I could come up to speed quickly on the state of commercial fiction…for a whopping $450 less than the conference fee. 
 
The girls and I headed out to Epcot, marveling at how we’d gotten everything on our intention list.  Well, almost. We still thought that it would be nice of Lauren Willig were at the conference.  Shannon’s been a huge fan of the Pink Carnation books  for the past year and devours everything Willig writes.  We did the things we loved at Epcot, decided it was ferociously too hot, and headed back to the hotel to pick up my car before going to Shannon’s to hang out and  take the girls and Brian to see “Inception.”  We dropped by the bookstore so Shannon could buy Willig’s hardcover, and then…waited outside a late-afternoon workshop  Lauren Willig was giving!  Shannon got her book signed and got to meet the author, who definitely lived up to her expectations.
 
I was exhausted when the weekend was over, but it was a good kind of exhausted, the kind where we got all the things we wanted and it seemed that all we had to do was ask and it was given to us.

We happened upon this little reminder at Disneyworld.  Photo by Lorna Tedder; all rights reserved.

The three of us Law-of-Attractioners were talking about how people who aren’t good for us, when we choose not to be with them any longer, just seem to not be around so much.  The transition to the “not-so-much” usually takes more than a few minutes, though.  In some cases, it’s months.  In other cases, even years.

I’ve been accused of cutting people out of my life on a whim.  To me, it isn’t a whim.  It only seems that way to people who haven’t been observant enough to notice my efforts.  By that point, I’ve usually exhausted all measures to get along or either discovered that the person I’m cutting out is so unethical that I cannot abide their presence any longer.  When I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough and it’s over. 

Sometimes, they don’t want to go.  There’s nothing worse than deciding you are done with a relationship and want nothing else to do with it and the other party just won’t let go.  They keep texting, emailing, calling.  In short, they have to be in control and will do whatever it takes to be the one in control, sometimes even so they can get  into control just long enough to be the rejecter rather than the rejected. 

Eventually, the more you focus on new stuff, exciting stuff, any other stuff than that relationship, they fade away.  They leave you alone.   They move away.  They find someone else, at least for a little while.  The wavelengths you haven’t been on in a while further separate, and you begin to bring wondrous new things into your life. 

So how is it bad people (or people who are bad for you) re-appear when you least expect it?  The latest female diversion is out of town or they’d had an argument and wham—right back and expecting everything to be the same as it once was.

I really can’t answer the question of how we attract such past-tense experiences and people back into our lives when we’ve changed our lives so much for the better.  For me, it seems always to be a shock but, at the same time, a beautiful reminder of what’s changed.  Of the lack of negativity that surrounded my life then.  Of the thickets of lies I had to machete my way through.  Of how much better life is without their negativity, manipulations, attitudes. 

It’s a measuring stick, I suppose.  I forget sometimes how good life is…or maybe how bad it once was.  The Law of Polarity, which means you need to know the opposite to understand something truly. When old things I thought I’d drummed out of my life reappear,  once I catch my breath, I usually realize that the contrast is a great way to brighten my present and future.

Whether you spend most of your days behind a desk and evenings lounging on a couch in front of the TV…or you’re dealing with way too much stress and drama….or you’re feeling dulled by depression, it helps to move that stagnant energy out of your body.  Most people familiar with New Age and metaphysical tools know that Reiki and massage are good ways to move energy around in the body and get your “chi” flowing again.

Physical exercise can also routinely and regularly move energy within the body.  Heart-pumping, deep-breathing cardio, active yoga poses, resistance training, kick-boxing, bellydancing, team sports–they can all stir you on a physical and cellular level. 

Spiritualize your workouts by thinking of how the exercise of your body-as-a-temple is energy that is brought to life within it, purified, moved around, and charged.  Get rid of your stiffness and sludgy feelings not just by moving your body, but moving the energy inside it. 

Thinking in terms of “energy” and clearing it, getting it to flow?  So much better than dreading a visit to the gym.

Here are the fastest rising older posts, in ascending order of popularity:

The Passionate Queen of Wands

Multi-Focus Contact Lenses: Trading in Reading Glasses for a New Vision of Me

Fifth Chakra Exercise: What I Wish I Could Say (2010 Version)

Men Who Smother… and the Women Who Run from Them

Walking Away from Someone You Love (and Hate and Fear)

The Anti-thesis of an Empath

Are You Suffering?

Chakras: The Root Connection Between Survival and Spirituality

A New Definition for “Saving Souls” –The Big Difference between Christianity and Wicca

The Adverbs of Life

For more articles on health, diet, and exercise, join us at The X in SeXy.

If the body is a temple, then we need to be aware of  when we’ve let it fall into disrepair.  Nothing makes its normal upkeep more difficult than lack of sleep.

For the past three years or more, I’ve had chronic insomnia.  Rarely has there been a night when I’ve slept all the way through, and if I could get 4 to 6 hours straight on a workday’s night, then that was sheer heaven.  Often, I’d have trouble falling asleep and then I’d wake every few hours.  It became part of my natural sleep cycle…to not sleep.  My energy would flag at the office, and then I’d come home every single day and crash on the sofa for an hour or so.  No matter how tired I’d be at bedtime, even after a nap, I couldn’t sleep.

People gave me lots of advice.  Quit caffeine.  Yep, I did.  Exercise daily. Did that, too.  No difference, even when I was doing cardio and weights 5 to 7 times a week for over an hour each day. 

My favorite?  “You just need to learn to quiet the mind.”  Duh.  I learned to meditate years ago.  That was, at times, of some help in falling asleep but not in keeping myself asleep.  In most cases, it wasn’t a matter of quieting my mind at all or destressing before bedtime. I learned a long time ago not to read email immediately before bedtime or talk to anyone with a history of saying upsetting things to me.

Plenty of people, including doctors, shrugged it off as being perimenopausal and something I should just accept.  Well, I sure didn’t like that answer.  When I had a hot live-in boyfriend, I could overlook the insomnia somewhat and remind myself that he was going to keep me awake anyhow…but in the mornings, boy, was I dragging to work!

But for the past month, I have slept SOUNDLY, every single night but one…and that was a night with a relative who insisted on telling me a horrific and visually disturbing story right before bedtime.  Other than that, I have suddenly begun to sleep at least 6 hours a night (my normal need) without waking even once, and I fall asleep easily, too.  I’ve also stopped coming home every day and crashing on the sofa or feeling zonked after a workout. 

The one specific change I made was to add a protein supplement to my diet.

I’ve read recently that some whey protein powders actually cause insomnia, or at least certain brands do.  I don’t know about that, but I do know that the one change to increase my protein has made a big difference in how I sleep and therefore how I feel.  It’s been as stark as an on-off light switch. 

While chatting with a fitness coach, I realized that my protein intake has been too low.  I’ve been focusing on veggies more and eating healthy meals but I simply haven’t been eating enough protein.  Too often, I’m too busy to eat a full meal, get interrupted at work while grabbing lunch at my desk, or don’t get a chance to leave a meeting and eat until 3 or 4 in the afternoon.  Work can be crazy like that sometimes, especially if I’m in all-day meetings that don’t break for lunch and I look around and see everyone sneaking candy bars out of the vending machines and downing Coke after Coke all day.  I’ve resorted to a piece of fruit or crackers or something somewhat healthier but it’s still not enough fuel for my…temple.  By the end of the work day, the utilities are pretty dim!

After this conversation, I started keeping better logs of my meals so I could think more about nutritional values and my protein ratio.  I immediately began starting my days with a small glass of fat-free milk with whey protein powder and following up any workouts with the same.  I didn’t replace meals with protein shakes but simply added protein powder as a supplement to my normal meals, especially the skimpy ones where I couldn’t break free of work for a fresh, hot lunch.

The effect is that I now have an early morning boost of energy and stay boosted throughout the day.  I don’t feel as if I’ll fall asleep at mid-morning or mid-afternoon, and I don’t go home and nap.  I have the energy to go home and workout, and when I go to bed at night, the sheets feel yummy and I just fall right asleep.  If I sound like I’m gushing, well, sleep has eluded me for a long, long time!

I’ve used egg white protein in blender shakes before but it was recommended that I try whey protein powder. I  stopped by the most convenient grocery store I could find and bought a big tub of chocolate whey powder (Pure Protein) that has 25 grams of protein, 2 grams of sugar, and 140 calories.  I like chocolate so it seemed an easy answer.   I decided to go ahead and get something in vanilla, too, but my choices were limited.  I finally picked Designer Whey’s Biggest Loser Vanilla Bean Protein Powder, mainly because the grocery store had a special $3 off sale.  I was really turned off by the special branding of the product with TV’s Biggest Loser promotion.  I tend to dislike celebrity promotions of that sort, I don’t watch TV much at all, and I wasn’t using protein to lose weight.  It also had a lot less protein than the first tub of whey– 6 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber (different), 1 gram of fat, and 50 calories.  However, I wanted to experiment a little.

As it turns out, I wasn’t that thrilled with the chocolate protein powder.  I liked the taste but I really dislike clumps of undissolved powder on top of my drink, and it takes a hand-blender to get Pure Protein as smooth as I like.  For that reason, I don’t use it as often and usually only after a really intense workout.  That said, my young college student often finds that she misses meals or doesn’t have time for a full meal between classes and she absolutely loves the chocolate protein shake when she’s on the run.

The Designer Whey vanilla bean was much better than I expected.  In fact, I think it’s delicious and I’m really picky about the taste of vitamins and supplements.  Most of the time, I complain that supplements taste like either cardboard (which this does in water) or swamp water.  I was extremely pleased with the taste in skim milk. 

Though I know whey protein is the cause of insomnia for some people,  it gives me the added fuel I need to run my temple on, and at night the lights are all on in the halls, it’s quiet and tranquil, and there’s nothing stirring but the rhythmic sound of deep sleep.

Today, I read with confusion that the rain that fell here on the Gulf Coast yesterday was black with oil and that I’m being prohibited from speaking out about the true conditions here  in the Northwest corner of Florida because I’m secretly under martial law and some sort of lockdown.  Really? 

These words were spoken with authority by some guy who’s never stepped foot in the area I’ve lived in since 1985 and still live, work, and have the freedom to say pretty much whatever I damn well please.  But he read it somewhere, or saw it in a conspiracy-theory website somewhere, and therefore it must be true.  As my readers know, I have nothing positive whatsoever to say about BP or the oil spill (just search oil spill in the search box to the right).  However, some of the spewing of rumors is ridiculous, baseless, and deeply upsetting to people who aren’t getting balanced coverage, no reference to FOX News intended.  Some are, however, quite fascinating as conspiracy theories.

I’m not a big fan of fear-mongering, but I am a big fan of conspiracy theories.  I love to write them, love to read them, love to watch them in movies.  Maybe that’s because I like the kernel of truth, the plausibility, the drama and excitement of it, and yet it’s just outlandish enough that I can recognize the paranoia and know that it’s not wholly the truth.    In other words, I’m not so focused on the barely disguised hope of conspiracy theories  being true that I see conspiracy in every utterance of life.

Something about the human race seems to crave End of the World catastrophe and apocalypse.  In my non-writing career and in my Southern Baptist the-last-days-are-upon-us childhood, I’ve heard thousands of theories, all focused gleefully on doomsday.  Maybe there’s some fantasy of who might survive such a doomsday–certainly the characters in my books don’t perish and somehow manage to stop it or delay it and save the world.  Maybe it’s our ultimate fantasy to get out of this world alive, even if we’re the ones fleeing the planet on a spaceship, saved by an alien race or whatever the current movie of the week delights in.

And yet, it’s disturbing to watch people focus so much on disaster that they  spin themselves into nothing but disaster.  The Law of Attraction would say they bring it to them…and I’ve seen that more than once–which is what scares me more than anything else.

I work with many different individuals and teams, and one group in particular makes me want to run screaming from the room every time I meet with them.  They’re skilled, competent, nice people who had a few distractions early in their project, resulting in what seemed like a short run of bad luck.  Yes, these things happen. Most professionals push ahead and focus on a positive outcome. Not these good folks.  They got into a downward spiral of “how much worse can it get?” to “we’re cursed” to “nothing ever goes right.”  On that last count, it became a reality.

The group wasn’t focused on conspiracy theories but most of my social time with them was spent listening to BP oil spill comments and watching them spin themselves into tizzies over things none of us can control.  From there, it became a huge what-if list that stressed them out.  These attitudes spilled over into their professional demeanor.  They began cataloging daily earthquakes around the world, not quite understanding that the planet moves within and always has but now we have the technology to record tremors we never knew existed before.  Then they added various catastrophes– tsunamis, hurricanes, airplane crashes.  They had a whole wall of one room dedicated to disaster after disaster after disaster. 

Were they a positive bunch to be around?  No.  Did they have the slightest belief that they would finish their project without a hitch?  No.  In fact, I have never seen a project have as many unforeseen glitches and disasters as theirs.  In spite of their competence, they constantly spun themselves into worry and upset.

I do believe that we fulfill our own prophecies.  If we look for flaws, we will find them.  If we look for disaster, we’ll find that, too. 

In regard to all the reporting on the Gulf oil spill, I guess I’d just like to hear and see the truth, without the spin of fantasy, and keep all my conspiracy theories and wild-eyed reports of apocalypse by non-witnesses on the screen or in books where I like them to be.

I had my first shaman-led chakra clearing last week! 

As part of my spiritual “continuing education,” I like to try new techniques and tools when the opportunity arises.  Sometimes, I’ve done them before.  Sometimes, it’s something new I’ve heard of and want to see if there’s a benefit to me. 

A few of the more recent ones:

-          Live workshops led by Mike Dooley of Tut.com and by Jerry and Esther Hicks

-          DVDs of live Abraham-Hicks workshops

-          Regular downloads of spiritual-themed audiobooks, including ones specific to quantum physics, the Law of Attraction, monks’ teachings, prayer techniques, and history

-          Regular downloads of new material related to the Teachings of Abraham

-          Chakra clearings

-          Akashic readings

-          Healing circles

-          Live workshops and rituals across a broad spectrum of other brands of spirituality

-          Regular meditation

-          Drumming

For Christians who are unfamiliar with some of these techniques, it seems overwhelming, but it’s really no different from my Southern Baptist days where we participated in all sorts of Bible studies, classes, choir practice, and prayer meetings all designed to bring us closer to our spiritual path.  Even when I was a Christian, I liked to study some of the more obscure spiritual techniques in the Baptist Church and local Methodist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, and Pentacostal churches—so it should be no surprise that I’m always seeking to deepen my knowledge of the Mysteries. 

While in the past, I’ve done different “clearings” for myself—essentially clearing away the metaphysical cobwebs that accumulate—I had never asked a shaman to do one for me.  It’s quite different from when I’ve done it myself, and I’m no slouch in that department either. 

Enter Kelley Harrell, author of Gift of the Dreamtime, and a very wise and gentle shaman who does “distance work,” meaning you don’t have to be sitting 3 feet in front of her for it to work.  I’ve worked with Kelley before, long-distance, and have been very impressed.  When something upsetting arose in my life a while back that seemed to be specific to one chakra, I emailed Kelley to find out if she could do clearings long-distance.  I’ve discovered that most people who can do such work don’t have any technical trouble  assisting from a geographical distance.  The biggest problem is more the inconvenience of having to write everything down and provide the report to the querent instead of simply delivering the information face-to-face.  It takes a bit more time for a shaman to handle that end of the experience, and many choose not to.

I was able to get on Kelley’s calendar about 2 or so weeks later.  She’s good, she’s in demand, and she seems to stay booked up unlike other shamans and spiritual teachers I’ve encountered.  I knew the day she was doing the clearing but that it would be several days before the customized report was emailed to me.   I’m still absorbing what she sent.

With a few developments in my life since my original request, it was interesting to read her report.  After the reading but before the completed report, I had begun to feel a lot better and had had two or three interesting epiphanies—which were very close to some of the things Kelley discussed with my spirit guides in the clearing/healing process.  She did a complete clearing of the chakras, not merely the one that concerned me, and touched on several deep and old truths that I’ve never discussed with anyone.  Beyond the actual healing work, Kelley also relayed messages from my guides and gave me specific techniques for doing my own clearings more effectively. 

I love that Kelley can be so dead-on, and yet so gentle and reassuring at the same time.  There was much from her report that I am able to carry with me on my spiritual journey.  If you’d like to make an appointment with Kelley for a chakra clearing, visit her appointment page at Soul Intent Arts.  I highly recommend her.

I think it’s sad when people are so consumed by an issue that they can no longer see anything else objectively or positively.  Everything they encounter is evidence of how they’ve been wronged.  People who don’t know me have taken spoken and written comments I’ve made out of context to prove I’m pro-XYZ or anti-XYZ, all depending on the filters they’ve created for their lives.  A good example of this is found in my article,  “Racism, Sexism, and Religious Prejudice: Seek and Ye Shall Find.”

So I decided I didn’t want to become THAT passionate about a minor health issue that I’ve managed easily.  In fact, I’d rather not focus on it or even think about it at all.  I shut down the project and didn’t worry about the financial or time investment.  It’s a far greater investment in myself and in my serenity to be passionate about much happier things.

One of the hardest things for me to do, up until recently, was to relax and enjoy the moment–something that greatly hindered my happiness quotient.

Sure, I would see all the beauty around me, but instead of enjoying it, I would immediately find something to worry about and skip ahead to what I “needed” to do.  Perhaps I would see an Eastern Bluebird–a rarity–and instead of marvelling at it, my mind would skip back to people who interfered with my mom’s bluebird trail 15 years ago or skip ahead to wondering what might kill off this little bird’s fledglings–snakes, ants, drought, predatory birds,  ignorant kids, you name it. 

Perhaps I’d notice the blue hydrangeas beginning to bloom in my back yard and instead of glorying in their beauty, I’d acknowledge them and then immediately remind myself that I needed to haul some limbs to the curb or burn some trash left over from trimming an oak. 

Instead of enjoying the afterglow in the arms of my very sexy lover, I would soon find my mind wandering to the morning, whether the clock would go off and he’d make it back home in time for work,  whether I’d oversleep, how the next afternoon’s business  meeting would go, and what time he was coming over the next night and if we’d have time to drive out to Seaside together.  Yes, my mind would be too busy plotting every possible fix to any possible problem that might arise. 

Staying “in the moment” was awfully hard.  If I wasn’t flitting back to the past to something that usually wasn’t near as pleasant, then I was trying on different possible futures…none of which tended to be as pleasant.

The biggest difference is that I’ve learned to milk it.  Milk the moment.  Enjoy it.  Glory in it.  Several of my friends refer to it as “basking,” which is a verb I like. 

Instead of noting something sweet and then marching full speed ahead into something not so sweet, I linger on it now, marvel at it. I stay focused on it for as long as I can.

For example, while walking down by the lake at sunset, I spotted a flurry of blue flying from the woods to a bird box someone had put up at a quiet spot on the bank of the lake.  Instead of thinking, “Oh, a pretty bluebird!” and either walking on or diving into a whirlpool of what-if, I took out my camera with the telephoto lens and started taking pictures.  I got this profile shot and that one, one of him with his mate in the box, and couldn’t stop grinning as he seemed to pose for me.  When a car passed us slowly, he flew to a sign that had been put up about 20 feet away.  I followed and had to laugh at the sign he’d chosen:”  FISHING BY CATCH & RELEASE ONLY.   I let all sorts of fun scenarios play out in my head, most of them ending with that tiny bluebird tossing a big fish back into the lake.   A man and his son, who were fishing nearby, chatted with me about bluebirds and photography, and by the time the bird finally flew out of sight, I had spent a good 10 minutes soaking up the beauty of the moment.    I focused on enjoying nothing but that moment and its beauty, and a single moment of beauty turned into 10 minutes of it. 

So now when I see something or hear something or feel something glorious, I don’t rush ahead to my daily life or the future.  The side effect is that my daily life overall is happier, as long as I remember to milk the sweetest moments.

 Photos here used with permission from Gregg Hall and True Reporting on Gulf Oil Spill.  Photos show oil on the white beaches in nearby Pensacola, Florida (currently being covered up–WTF?–by yellow sand brought in) and the notice given out by the local National Park Service, even though the health advisory signs have been covered over with black bags.  If you’re curious about what’s really going on here on the Gulf Coast, forget the mainstream media and get the scoop direct from the locals. Click on the photos for a larger view.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of the Teachings of Abraham and believe that they make a fine template for most religious thought.   I’ve been in the presence of Deity, both as a devout Christian and later as  a devout Wiccan, and it’s the same to me as what Esther Hicks and Abraham refer to as Source or The Vortex—but that’s another post on semantics and universality of the human experience.  I’ve gotten quite good at being in a highly positive mindset all the time.  Where I’ve had trouble recently is with the Gulf Oil Spill and pivoting from my anger and irritation—and feelings of contamination and toxicity.

I’m one of the Abraham-Hicks “gluttons.”  For those who are familiar with their subscription program, you can download unedited versions of their workshops, which are 4 to 10 hours, depending on whether the audio is of a regularly workshop or one of their cruise workshops which are much longer.  These are great for me because I consistently always hunger for new perspectives and use these downloads to augment my spiritual work. 

Since the oil spill on April 20, 2010, I’ve listened to at least 5 or 6 of these lengthy downloads and,  every time, a question either comes up about the oil spill or Abraham addresses it directly.   It’s clearly heavy on the minds of workshop participants.  The Abraham perspective is always useful to me, but it’s only now after 74 days and seeing the snow-white beaches 5 miles from my home become contaminated and toxic that I am finally beginning to shift to a better mindset.  That’s evident in my health over the past 2 months.

In the beginning, when the Deepwater Horizon oil spill first occurred in April, I was annoyed, irritated.  And that grew with every news story.  I don’t normally have allergy problems after the end of March or the first week of April when the pine and oak pollen have subsided, but by Mother’s Day, I seemed to be allergic to everything—and very sensitive to the fumes occasionally blown inward from burning oil in the Gulf of Mexico.  My allergies induced asthma and a severe respiratory distress,  and every time I walked outside into that gods-awful smell, my throat closed up.  That’s honestly very scary, as I happen to like breathing and my throat closing sends me into an automatic, primal panic.   There was a definite physical connection between my allergies and the oil spill.

From a metaphysical viewpoint, there was also a definite connection between the spill and my allergies.  The emotion related to the symptoms?  Irritation.  I’ve always been very irritated by people who don’t take responsibility, by people who make a  mess and don’t clean it up, by people who destroy something through intention or negligence and then expect me to deal with it.  And I really get irritated (agitated is the proper word, I know) when someone makes a mess of things and LIES about it.  BP certainly triggered a lot of anger and annoyance in me but irritation is the best way to describe both my feelings about the oil spill and the symptoms of my illness. 

The worst of it came as I began to see the reports of the beaches I love becoming contaminated and toxic (with chemical dispersants like Corexit) as black oil washed ashore in nearby Pensacola, an hour west of here.  My illness became much more serious as a new infection took hold while I was already weak, and yes, it was life-threatening.  I understood the metaphysical connection but still couldn’t shift it that quickly.  I was still feeling irritation but now, I felt vile and violated, poisoned, out of balance, impure, contaminated, toxic…pretty much my emotional connection with the waters and beaches of the Gulf. 

My new medication is working now, though I may be on it for another month.  I’ve made a significant shift in distancing myself from the toxicity and irritation.  It’s taken 74 days to get relief and get to a point of looking forward again.  I don’t know that it’s acceptance or resignation, but my empathic nature requires me to find some way to shield myself emotionally from the tragedy that’s hit home.

But the yoga teacher had another tip that goes beyond stress incontinence for new moms, menopausal women, and bedwetting children.  She recommended making that First Chakra connection during a squat, preferably alone and naked.  She recommended de-stressing ourselves by completely relaxing the bottom of the pelvis, almost to the point of urinating, while in a squatting position by squeezing  in a single Kegel and then letting it relax all the way.  We hold so much of our survival instinct and the stress of it at the base of our spine and in our pelvic floor that it can be tremendously relaxing to let go to that point. 

We don’t have to hold on so tightly to Life, she said, but instead, just let ourselves go.  What better place to relax and let go of stress than in the First Chakra?

Honestly, the worst of it is trying to figure out how to make both a movie date and a yoga workout in the same evening.  I’m blissfully busy!

My daughters are vacationing with relatives in Canada, and within the first two days, concerned friends and colleagues are already in the empty-nest mindset, worrying about me now and what will happen when Aislinn leaves for college in a year.  I’m shocked by the number of people who suggest I sell my house and buy a smaller one–as if I must justify my space with children rather than houseguests or a live-in lover or…pets?  Really, if I sell my home, I’ll be moving to some exotic place or planning a long-term round-the-world trip, not a scaled-down version of life.

I’ve focused on not living my life through my children or making them the center of my world, especiallty now that they’re older and becoming independent.  I’d love to save them from mistakes, but I fullly recognize that that’s how they learn and they’re not here to be a do-over for the way I’ve lived my life and dreams.  I don’t hound them about what to do with their lives.  It’s their lives–and I’m instead focusing on mine while very much enjoying them. 

So my well-meaning friends amuse me as they fret over me and invite me to more social events than I could fit into the next six months in order to fill up some void they think I must have in my time or heart.  They don’t need to worry– my life is full, busy, and fun.  And I’m thankful to have good friends who would certainly help to fill a gap if there should be one.

Partial lunar eclipse, view from Australia.  Photo copyright by  wiccked; creative commons license.

This trio of articles covers finding out how the partial lunar eclipse of June 26, 2010 might affect you astrologically by looking at parallel and related eclipses, house placement, and planets in conjunction or opposition to the eclipse.

How the June 2010 Full Moon Eclipse Might Affect You (Part 1 of 3)

How the June 2010 Full Moon Eclipse Might Affect You (Part 2 of 3)

and Part 3….

“This is the equivalent of a Pluto-Pluto conjunction, which we humans will experience around the moment of birth!”

 

3. Planets in conjunction/opposition to eclipse

Since I covered this scariness of an eclipse hitting exact on the degree or opposite degree of a planet back in January 2008 and in several subsequent posts, I’ll quote from what I’ve written previously and then tell you what to look at for this eclipse.

So what happens when an eclipse conjuncts one of your natal planets?  Some people say it’s like the transformational blast/upset of Pluto acting on that planet.  In other words, if the eclipse is at the same degree as a particular planet in your birthchart, then the life areas represented by that planet will be where you have a sudden upset…more like a nuclear strike on that planet.  

Or so some say.  But let’s look into my chart for the past few years, as well as my private journals, and see what was shaping up for me then.

Ah, how about 28 August 2007?   The lunar eclipse was at…4 degrees Pisces.  Strange….that’s the exact degree of my Ascendant.  What was happening in my life that day?  Well, the first thing was a couple of emails asking if I was going bankrupt and closing Spilled Candy, and within 48 hours, there were 1000’s of people screaming at me on MySpace, calling me all sorts of very un-nice things and emailing lies about me.  A lot of wonderful people came to my defense, too, and knew how difficult those days were for me because of  family health issues and a few close friends knew I was having major problems getting oxygen at that time, but for the most part, nobody knew I was having all the symptoms of heart failure.  But that one particular day was a bolt of out the blue when things just couldn’t have hit any harder or any worse as far as my reputation.  And what does the Ascendant represent?  How the outer world sees you.  Oh, and just for grins, it was also conjunct a fixed star that represents destructiveness and sorrow.

So here are the past few years’ big eclipses, those big drama-producers.  Keep in mind that some say that lunar eclipses tear down and get rid of while solar eclipses regenerate.  Hmmm, yes, a lot of Pluto similarities in that idea.

Let’s try 14 March 2006, with a lunar eclipse at 14 Virgo.  Exact conjunction with my Black Moon Lilith.  That was the day I realized something had been going on behind my back and ended the relationship.  My instincts caused me to ask a particular question and the answer I got shocked me.  It was a major event for me, and one that changed the course of my life.

How about 29 March 2006?  Solar eclipse at 8 Aries 35.  The closest in my chart would have been Eris, the asteroid that represents sexuality, but the conjunction wasn’t exact.  My records don’t show anything substantive occuring that day.

Let’s try 7 September 2006, with a lunar eclipse at 15 Pisces.  Nope, nothing close.   The solar eclipse two weeks later at 29 Virgo?  Nope, nothing close BUT a friend with Pluto at that exact degree had a major death/rebirth issue that day.

Moving into 2007,  let’s look at 3 March with a lunar eclipse on my birthday at 13 Virgo.  Close to my Black Moon Lilith but off by a degree.  No major trauma or drama that day. Meanwhile, the 18 March solar eclipse at 28 Pisces wasn’t close to anything and passed uneventfully as well.

The 28 August eclipse, I’ve already discussed, but how about the one right after, on 11 September when the solar eclipse at 18 Virgo 24 was to mean regeneration?  Interesting.  I have my Vertex (turning points) at 18 Virgo 42. which is pretty darned exact. Were there any turning points in my life then?  Yes, a personal one.  I remember the date because of a letter I received.  It was a good thing, regenerating in a very nice way.

So here we are in 2008 with some eclipses coming up.  Am I nervous?  Hell, yeah.  Excited, too.  I went a little farther back in my own charts than I’m showing here because there are details I don’t care to share, but what I’m seeing is that, in general, when the eclipse is exact to something in my chart, rather than even a degree off, there is a dramatic effect in that area of my life.  If the eclipse is lunar, then yes, it does seem to be about things being destroyed whereas solar eclipses tend to bring new life into those areas of my life.

 

If I fast forward, the next two significant eclipses for me personally occurred  in August 2008, which  was conjunct my Natal Jupiter/Mars.  That eclipse heralded a tremendous expansion in how I saw relationships and what I knew was possible as well as how I thought about sexuality.  The following January 2009, an eclipse was conjunct my Natal Saturn, and oh, but yes, it was definitely a time of constriction and hard lessons.  Saturn is definitely a teacher, and especially when given a power burst by an eclipse.

This June 26, 2010 eclipse is conjunct Pluto in capricorn, so externally, we all have the possibility of big change in structures, governments, and institutions.  This is the equivalent of a Pluto-Pluto conjunction, which we humans will experience around the moment of birth!  But on a personal level, internally, this eclipse might get your attention in an extra-strong way if you have a conjunction or opposition.  How?  Here are a few ways it might manifest for different celestial bodies:

Sun:  who you are, your personality

Ascendant:  how you appear to the world

Moon: emotions, Mother

Mercury: communications, intellect, mental processes

Venus: romance, creativity, finances

Mars: sex, aggression

Jupiter: expansion, business,

Saturn: constriction, lessons

Uranus: shake-ups, bolts from the blue

Neptune:  spirituality, deception, illusion, uncertainty

Pluto: regeneration, death and rebirth

Chiron: wounding/healing

Juno:  marriage

Lilith: addictions,  instincts

This trio of articles covers finding out how the partial lunar eclipse of June 26, 2010 might affect you astrologically by looking at parallel and related eclipses, house placement, and planets in conjunction or opposition to the eclipse. 

Part 1

Part 2

2.  House Placement

Where does this eclipse occur in your natal chart?  In other words, which of the 12 “houses” of your astrological chart will be most affected?  A house is like an area, sector, or theme of your life. 

Here are the 12 houses and what areas of your life they represent:

First house:  self, ego

Second house:  values, possessions, money, self-worth

Third house:  siblings, neighborhood/community environment, communications

Fourth house:  home,  domestic situation, can mean the mother but in some situations the mother is represented in the Tenth house and the father in the fourth

Fifth house:  romance, children, creative expression, play

Sixth house:  daily life/routine/tasks, health, skills/jobs (not career)

Seventh house: committed partnerships (marriage or business), legal relationships, open enemies

Eight house:  sex, joint finances, regneration, death, transformation, occult

Ninth house:  travel, knowledge/education, foreign cultures, religion, law

Tenth house:  career, the father (though sometimes the mother), authority, Government

Eleventh house:  goals/hopes, friends, groups

Twelfth house:  mysticism/spirituality, hospitals, prisons, secrets, hidden things, unknown enemies

To find out which houses are affected, you must know what’s in your chart.  If you don’t already know, go to astro.com and create your own natal chart (it’s free) using your place of birth, birth time, and birth date.  You must know your approximate birth time and place or this exercise will NOT be accurate. 

Look on your chart for  the house that 5 degrees of Capricorn occurs in.  This is where you’ll most feel the effects.  Then look at where 5 degrees Cancer shows up in your chart–opposite of the eclipse.  This house will also be strongly affected.  

 If you don’t know how to find this at astro.com, then I recommend you find an astrologer to pay for this information (I don’t do this, sorry, so please don’t ask).

Continuing my example from the previous article in this trio, my own themes are playing out in career vs home, with the eclipse occuring near the end of my Tenth house and the end of  its opposite house, the Fourth.  Combined with looking at parallel eclipses and house placement, I’m most likely to feel changes in responsibility  in my career and home environments over the next few months.

For those of you looking for rituals, prayers, or meditations for the Full Moon eclipse on June 26, 2010, I’m not providing a full-length ritual but I do have some powerful suggestions that you may wish to incorporate into your spiritual work.  I realize that many of you are doing work specifically for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and for health issues, so I’m focusing on those here today.  I think you’ll like the imagery.

Using the astrology signs:  This particular Full Moon is always very powerful to me, especially if it’s close to the Summer Solstice (earlier this week on June 21, 2010).  That’s because the Sun is in Cancer and it’s very much a father-feel to this time of year as the Sun is at its height and the days are longest.  Sun in Cancer is a gentle and fluid form of masculine, protective energy, yet Cancer is ruled by the Moon, which is feminine, fluid, emotional, nurturing.  And this particular Full Moon is in decidedly non-watery, non-fluid, non-emotional, structured and staid Capricorn, an earth sign.  To me, this is about as opposite as you can get.  But…it’s the perfect time for manifesting, especially manifesting emotional things or things that need…”flow.”  Capricorn is the best of all astrological signs for manifesting.  Think of making something rock-solid.

Recommended tool/image to incorporate for a beautiful ritual or prayer: 

Water.  Leave a sealed container of pure water out overnight in the light of the full moon. 

Try to time your prayer/ritual/meditation for the time of the eclipse—here on the Gulf Coast of Florida where we’re watching the oil overtake our white beaches and threaten our groundwater if Tropical Storm/Hurricane Alex comes ashore, the timing is 6:31 AM  Central Time, with the Ascendant in Cancer and the eclipse in the Sixth House of Health and Daily Life.   

During your spiritual work, focus on the some aspect of the water that you would like to manifest solidly .  For example, the water may represent purity of the Gulf of Mexico.  If you’re seeking to improve your health, it might represent contamination in the body being washed away.   It might represent the flow of emotion in a relationship or the ability to be fluid under hard times.   Since this eclipse is under a T-square formation and has many sharp and upsetting angles,  think not so much of disruption but of change to something purer, something that flows better for you. 

Drink the entire container of water during your spiritual work as you visualize it purifying, flowing, etc.

Throughout the next 28 days, drink water as often as possible instead of other liquids, and each time you do, recall this working and bless yourself.

Don’t forget to read the other astrology articles focusing on the eclipse this week!